Quote of The Week #53

Don't go looking for boys in the dark
They will say pretty things then leave you with scars.
Do go looking for boys in the park
For that is where the true gentlemen are.


A Seamstress's Verses, 1898

Cyber Love

I'm about to meet the girl I love for the first time.

I'd met her on the internet. Her name was Lauren, and she was a teacher. We had been emailing each other for a few months, until eventually, we decided to meet. I was wearing my red check shirt and jeans, just like I'd said. She, Lauren would be wearing the same. God, I'm nervous, I mean, I really think we have something. Something... good? Online, it seemed like it. A face catches my eye from a bench a few metres away. There's this girl staring at me. It's getting a little unnerving. She looks, what, sixteen? I'm looking away, but she's still staring at me when I peek at her again. She's walking over. She probably wants directions or something. Not from around here.

'Are you... Niall?'

She's mixed up. Yes, my name's Niall, but she obviously wants another Niall. Some idiot with zits who thinks he's God's gift to teenage girls. I keep ignoring her.

'Are you Niall from the internet? NiallEleventhDr?'

That was my username. That is my username online! But I'm sure there's plenty of Doctor Who fans called Niall. It's a complete coincidence. Her top is red. It has a checked pattern on it. It's probably a complete coincidence. Definitely. I decide I should say something. 'I'm sorry, who are you?'

'I'm Lauren! It's great to meet at last.'

She sticks her hand out, but I don't think I can offer my own. Lauren! She's Lauren! Lauren, the twenty-four year old teacher! Lauren, the girl I've been chatting to online for the past year! Lauren, the... teenager?! The red checked shirt! Just like mine! Oh my God!

God, I should probably say something.

'No. I'm sorry, you've obviously got me mixed up with someone else.'

'No, I'm pretty sure I haven't. You're Niall. I'm Lauren. We said we would meet here last Tuesday. I'm sorry I'm late, I got held up finishing some homework. You know how it is...' she says with a careless wave of her hand.

Homework! I'm twenty-four! I haven't done homework in six years!

'Look, there's obviously been a mistake. I'm waiting for a different Lauren - '

'Who's twenty-four years old, a teacher from Limerick, who you met on a Doctor Who forum? Everyone exaggerates on the internet, idiot. I thought you were my age as well.'

Everyone exaggerates on the internet? Well, of course I knew that. I just...

'Thought you were different, that's all.'

I said that out loud?!

'Different? Older, you mean. I thought you were someone else too, some guy from my school. Still, I can't complain. McDonalds?'

She thought that I was some... some kid? She just 'can't complain'? Seriously?

'Christ, how old are you? Sixteen?'

'Fourteen. I've got a voucher for a chicken nugget meal. You can have it though, if you want.'

Fourteen. I am on a date with a fourteen year old girl. How on earth did this happen? I can hear sirens behind me, police sirens, but that could just be my imagination. I think people are starting to stare. I'm spending too much time with a fourteen year old girl that I don't know than is good for me. Jesus, I could be arrested! Falling in love with a fourteen year old girl online! I could be put on the sex offenders register! What would my mother think?

'Have you seen the new episode? Personally, I don't think Amy is actually River Song. Still, I tend to get these things wrong. What do you think?'

I miss Lauren. But Lauren isn't coming. Lauren doesn't exist. A figment of some evil child's imagination.

'Look, just... never mind, alright?'

I walk away. Just before I turn the corner, I look back, and she's on her phone. Moments later, I get an email.

'Tlk 2 u l8r?'

I should say no. I should delete the text, and delete her from my life. But she's the closest thing I've got to Lauren. Besides, she'll be eighteen in a few years. And there's no laws against us being friends. Plus, she likes Doctor Who.

'McDs?'

'Gr8! i <3 u xxxxx'

Lauren is worth it Lauren is worth it Lauren is worth it

There's a hand on my shoulder. I freeze, expecting it to belong to a guard, but it's a young, pretty woman.'Are you Niall?'

Nice red shirt. Red suits her. 

Quote of The Week #52

'How ridiculous is this?!'
'We say that every photo shoot!'


Colin O'Brien and Paddy Dunne, at the Devious Theatre poster shoot for Shifting, during which this poster was born.

Hey everyone! This makes an entire year of Quotes! Happy Easter!

Busting Easter Boredom

So. It's the Easter Holidays, you've already eaten all your Easter eggs and been to Mass, and you're bored out of your brains. Well, let me tell you something - PATHETIC! If you're bored, you're not trying hard enough. I could just keep on insulting you, but hey, I like you. I'm going to help you get out of your slump, and not waste these valuable weeks out of school. Yes, I know. You're welcome.

Make Food

More specifically, Fruits of the Forest Crumble. It's incredibly easy.

Ingredients - Porridge oats, butter, brown sugar, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries.
1: Melt butter. Mix with porridge oats and sugar.
2: Put chopped strawberries and not chopped raspberries and blueberries into two rammakin dishes. You know, the small ones. Good for sharing.
3: Put the porridge oats mixture on top. Bake for twenty, twenty-five minutes.

There you have it. Even I could do it! And I do!

Watch Something On The Internet That's Actually Good (Instead Of Rubbish)

Back in November, I wrote a terrible, terrible poem about an internet sitcom called Vultures. Five months on, the poem is still really bad, but Vultures is still as awesome (to me, anyway). It's about three private detectives who try to run a business in a small Irish town. Please watch it so you can tell me how much you like it and then we can just babble about how great it is together like HJKSDHFGKSFDHDKJHKJHF. It'll be fun.

Stop Staring At Art On The Internet And Make Some Of Your Own

Everyone is good at something. Everyone can be creative. Some people's talents may overlap different art forms, and some people may find it hard to find their niche, but it's there. Go find it. Create something. Then stand back and take it all in, that once, you were able to make this thing, and you did. You won't regret it.

Go On Holidays Where You Live

Wherever you live, in your city or town or village or rock, your family settled there for a reason. Turn into a tourist (annoying the locals is optional, although they may know you in real life) and visit all those beautiful places that you ignore on a daily basis because you think it's embarrassing or you've just never thought about doing it before. You'll see your habitual abode in a different light.

Write Letters

I could say to you that in this high-tech world full of technological hurdy-gurdies no one takes the time to write a simple letter before, but you've probably already heard that a thousand times. But seriously. Write a letter to a celebrity or someone else you admire, to your local representative in parliament to stick up for something, to an old friend or a relative you haven't seen in a while. Emails are good too, but nothing beats that moment when you hear a letter flop onto the mat and you pick it up and run your fingers over your name on the front...

So there you have it. Five absolutely brilliant ways of having a great Easter break. There's no need to thank me, but I will accept your thanks anyway. Be sure to report back to me when you do any of these and tell me how they went. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and write a letter to some friends. I'll see you soon.

Eleanor Roscuro

P.S. Did I write this just to kill time?

Maybe.

Quote of the Week #51

Lady Tottington: But Victor, didn't we agree, no more thoughtless killing?
Lord Victor Quartermaine: Quite right, my dear, so I thought this one out very carefully.
(Aims his gun at a rabbit)


Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

This Week I...

THIS WEEK, I...

• Did my Home Economics practical for my Junior Cert. Made Fruits of the Forest Crumble and Chilli, Spinach and Carrot Soup.
• Moved into the final week of Shifting rehearsals before Production Week.
• Won a table quiz. Using my intellect. Got an Easter egg.
• Got a cold, or flu, or something. Still have it. Hope not to have it by Sunday.
• Was away from the internet for five days SHOCK HORROR DISASTER
• Still haven't started my Script Frenzy. Fifteen days to go.
• Was complimented on my Apostrophe by a cast member of Shifting, who has started her own awesome blog. Her name's Ruth, the blog's A Healthy Kind of Vanity. Minions, you know what to do. (Like, read it. And follow. You know?)
• Was frustrated by the approach to History in the Junior Cycle in Ireland. The paper is flawed, the Chief Examiner has admitted that. It needs to be easy enough for students that find history more difficult and for the growing number of students in Irish secondary schools for whom English is not their first language, but hard enough so that only 8% of candidates will get an A. Teachers are encouraged to make lessons more 'fun' by getting their students to teach history to their classmates or playing games, but these won't help. They won't help in the exam. If your goal is to make only some students learn something, then cop the fuck on, because the Department is messing around with people's futures here. Including mine. (And I will be getting an A in Honours History.)
• Was tired. Living on pure adrenaline, which is fun.
• Got The Fear. Fear for Shifting, for my HE practical. The week before a show, I take The Fear out on my bottom lip, and it keeps bleeding now. I know you all wanted to know that. Lovely.
• Tried to draw some sort of Apostrophe header but got sad when I remembered yet again that I can't draw.
• Am HAPPY! And excited, and worried, and frustrated, but happy.

Eleanor Roscuro

Quote of The Week #50

Hm that’s a good point, let me think for a bit
Oh wait, my mistake, it’s absolute bullshit.
Science adjusts it’s beliefs based on what’s observed
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved.
If you show me
That, say, homeopathy works,
Then I will change my mind
I’ll spin on a fucking dime
I’ll be embarrassed as hell,
But I will run through the streets yelling
It’s a miracle! Take physics and bin it!
Water has memory!
And while it’s memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is Infinite
It somehow forgets all the poo it’s had in it!


You show me that it works and how it works
And when I’ve recovered from the shock
I will take a compass and carve Fancy That on the side of my cock.


Tim Minchin - Storm

Now Looky Here

This is the trailer for Shifting. It is scripted by John Kennedy, writer of the play and member of the cast, and directed and edited by Paddy Dunne. It stars the entire cast as they get up close and personal with each other. Check it out and please share it!

The song is from Morrissey, 'I Know Very Well How I Got My Name', here performed by Jessica Walsh and arranged by Geoff Warner Clayton, both members of the cast, and engineered by Ken McGuire, who is also producing the play.

Shifting opens on April 18th and runs until April 23rd in No. 76 John Street, Kilkenny. Tickets are €10, but on the first night, Monday April 18th, they're only a fiver. These fiver tickets can only be bought at the venue, and the rest of the tickets can be booked at DeviousTheatre.com or booked on 056 – 7794138.

Kisses,

Eleanor Roscuro

Going, Going, Gone

So remember a while back I blogged about a play I was excited about, called Scratcher?

That's part of a season of three plays, called In The Future When All's Well. Did I mention that? No, I didn't. Well, the second one is called Shifting, by a young chap called John Kennedy. He is a nice person.

Shifting is a comedy about making the first move. The bittersweet story is centred around a birthday party in the suburbs of Kilkenny City where a group of childhood friends try to have one last hurrah together before going their seperate ways into adult life. But as the night progresses, this final flirtation with their teenage years degenerates into a booze soaked mess of accusations, confessions, cake and unwanted gatecrashers.


It's being directed by John Morton, who also directed, wrote, and starred in Scratcher, and is being assistant directed by me.

*cough* *shuffles feet*

So, yeah.

Sorry for my absence, but I really have been busy! I have a valid excuse! I'm assistant directing a play, this play, and it's brilliant! The whole experience! Everyone's so nice, and it is truly an honour to get to do this. Ha, Google Chrome just put a red squiggly line under honour. Stupid American spelling.

But anyway. You know, it'd be nice if people came.

Shifting opens on April 18th and runs until April 23rd in No. 76 John Street, Kilkenny. It's the first week of the Easter holidays, so if you're around, you probably won't have anything else to do. Apart from come. Tickets are €10, but on the first night, Monday April 18th, they're only a fiver. These fiver tickets can only be bought at the venue, and the rest of the tickets can be booked at DeviousTheatre.com or booked on 056 – 7794138.

I know it's unrealistic to ask a lot of you to come, like the people who live in a different time zone. But if you live near-ish, I'd love to see you there.

Oh, and I wrote a little blog for the Devious Theatre website. Here it is. There's pictures and everything.

Kisses,

Eleanor Roscuro

P.S. For those who don't know, shifting is an old slang word in Kilkenny for kissing. Get it?

Quote of The Week #49

One of the worst things in Ireland is that there are lots of divorces... but we don't have any wars here, which is good.. If I could change one thing, I'd like to stop people dying of diseases.

Response from a 12-year-old girl in a National Children's Strategy survey.

The Quest For Quotes

You know what's an awkward moment?

When you're in the Arts Office on a Sunday morning and you're just taking notes until a thought runs into your head SHIT I HAVEN'T DONE MY QUOTE OF THE WEEK and you don't know what to do because you don't have any quotes prepared and part of being a good blogger is consistency and you consider asking John or Ken or someone but then you think NO THEY'LL SAY ELEANOR YOU SHOULD HAVE YOUR QUOTE OF THE WEEK PREPARED YOU'RE VERY UNPROFESSIONAL GET OUT OF THIS OFFICE and then you consider asking Alan or Ruth or someone but then you think NO THEY WON'T UNDERSTAND THEY'LL ASK WHAT DO YOU NEED A QUOTE OF THE WEEK FOR AND THEN I WON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY and then you get home and flick feverishly through your script but every line is either a spoiler or doesn't make sense on it's own and you check the newspaper but all the quotes in there are about the banks then you rifle through books, Tumblr, the internet, looking for just one good quote until you realise you really should have asked John or Ken for a good quote because that might not have been such a bad thing to do. Maybe.

Sorry for absence. There will be a post this week, but not now because it's 22:09 my time and I have to go to bed. I have news.